Poor implementation of midday meal scheme in India

The midday meal scheme is an ambitious remedy the government is
using to deal with the situation of education and nutrition of
the children of India. Acknowledging this effort of the
government, nearly 120 million children across the country make
use of this scheme.

However, the lackluster performance regarding the implementation
of this scheme has served as a deterrent towards its use and has
eclipsed the incentives of the scheme. Ignorant actions of a
principal of a school in Bihar where this scheme is being
implemented claimed the lives of 23 children in the village of
Dharmashati Gandaman, as the cooking oil used was stored in a
bottle earlier used to store insecticide. Unfortunately, this is
not an isolated example. Cases of poor quality food are not
uncommon. Lizards and insects being found in the midday meal on
some occasions is an example of the consequences of poor
implementation of this scheme. A peculiar incident in Jharkhand
involved the use of washing powder instead of salt, leading to
the illness of 40 children in the Hazaribagh district. Several
other problems such as corruption and lack of monitoring of the
scheme led to shortages in supply of food for the midday meal
scheme.

I believe the above tragic situation can be solved by giving jobs
to some of the parents of the poor children, benefiting from the
scheme responsible to collect the food grains from government
go-downs and for cooking the midday meal. This will help create a
considerable number of jobs and will considerably improve the
efficiency and functioning of the midday meal scheme.